The Collected Poems Of Patrick Lane

One of Canada's most distinguished poets and winner of the Governor General's Award in 1979 for Poems New and Selected, Patrick Lane deserves much admiration for his remarkable poetic achievement. This new volume of his verse traces the evolution of his work and includes both poetry from his previously published collections and a number of new poems.

This volume represents the accumulated richness of fifty years' work by one of Canada's most important poets, Patrick Lane. Here, the reader can see how he developed from an engaged recorder of hard experience--even traumatic violence--into a master poet whose meditations on nature, human frailty, and love allow him to balance the world's suffering with stunning moments of transcendent beauty and a vision of peace. He expresses himself in a variety of forms and tones--in turn despairing and rejoicing, tender and brutal, imagistic and elegiac, deeply personal and universal. As Nicholas Bradley observes, in an afterword written for this volume, "The journey that Lane's works trace has been long and hard, but, as this collection demonstrates, his poems achieve both understanding and grace." Edited by two distinguished scholars of Canadian literature, this long-overdue book gathers a lifetime of work. Ranging from Letters from a Savage Mind (1966) to Witness (2010), this collection contains more than four hundred poems (many revised for this publication) and demonstrates the breadth of Lane's achievement.

Patrick Lane is one of Canada's pre-eminent poets, winner of numerous awards, including the Governor General's Award for Poetry, the Canadian Authors Association Award, the Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence and three National Magazine Awards. His distinguished career spans forty-five years and twenty-four volumes of poetry as well as award-winning books of fiction and non-fiction. Witness is the only volume to cover the breadth of Lane's career and gather up the finest of his work--from early poems penned during his literary beginnings to new poems written at the height of his career. Fierce, piercing, and unflinchingly honest, Lane explores the darker side of human nature and desire even as he looks to the future with a hopeful eye, for "even among words/there are bright seeds hidden . . ." This striking volume is required reading, not only for fans of Patrick Lane's work, but for poetry lovers and Canadian literature enthusiasts everywhere.

LANE CREATES STARK IMAGES IN THESE ACCOUNTS OF HIS TRAVELS AND EXPERIENCES. WINNER OF THE 1978 GOVERNOR GENERAL'S AWARD.

Intense, starkly honest, often disturbing, yet also subtle, compassionate, even gentle, Patrick Lane's poems are always political, driven by personal experience - and whether he's writing about the natural world or the human condition, they make an indelible impression.

Believed by many to be one of the finest poets of his generation, Patrick Lane is also a passionate gardener. He lives on Vancouver Island, a place of uncommon beauty, where the climate is mild, the air is soft, and the growing season lasts nearly all year long. Lane has gardened for as long as he can remember, and sees his garden’s life as intertwined with his own. And when he gave up drinking, after years of addiction, he found solace and healing in tending to his yard. In this exquisitely written memoir, he relates stories of his hard early life in the context of the landscape he’s created. As he observes the seasonal changes, a plant or a bird or the way a tree bends in the wind brings to mind an episode from his storied past. Lane writes evocative descriptions of the animals, birds, insects, and plants that are his garden, and of the relationship he has to them all. Accompany Lane as he wanders his garden, where botanical “madeleines” release in him a flood of memory.

The poems in No Longer Two People are a conversation between poets, exploring connections and the "vibration of life."